INTEL LAGS RIVALS

Intel is now facing some serious headwinds in the competitive semiconductor sector. Intel has a problem with 14nm lines working at capacity while their 10nm lines are floundering with poor yields.

Global Foundries has been able to develop their so-called 7nm line and are now transitioning from risk production to mass production for 2019. Samples are available but yields are still poor.

TSMC is also ramping up their so-called 7nm line and they are also transitioning from risk production to mass production for 2019. Samples are available but again yields are poor.

Intel has pushed back 10nm until 2020 as there are still some problems with the new node. The biggest one is the problem of silicon wafers at the smallest scale. Imperfections in the silicon is a serious problem.

Global Foundries:

twin wall CMOS bulk FinFET

4 Core device Vt’s

two gate dielectrics: thin (SG) and medium I/O (EG)

full suite of passive devices

optional MIM capacitor: eFuse

VDD: 0.75V nominal or .0,85 overdrive

standard temperature range of -40°C to 125°C

optical lithography compatible with EUV

up to 17 layers of metalization

Intel has similar specification but they are experiencing issues mostly with the imperfections in silicon. Voids at the atomic scale are a major nuisance.

AMD’s Ryzen processor is currently clocked at around 4.0GHz, and 12nm is only about 4.2GHz. It is still more expensive than Intel processors.